


Fear is Only a Choice

by asphodelknox



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Afterlife, Ghosts, M/M, fear is only a choice, more just philosophical, my fingers started typing and I just let them, not really sure what I was doing here, this is not at all actually scary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 13:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19319437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphodelknox/pseuds/asphodelknox
Summary: What's more frightening? Saying goodbye to everyone you love or moving forward to whatever is after death?





	Fear is Only a Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I love doing Wordplay! Even if I have no idea where this came from. :P It's a short, simple story but I hope you enjoy it! Many thanks to [Tabby](https://hi-larrie-ous.tumblr.com/) for last minute betaing! 
> 
> This is part of a Wordplay prompt challenge for the prompt "foot". To read the amazing fics that were written by the others on this prompt, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/foot), and to see all fics written as part of the challenge (including years 1 and 2), [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wordplay_fic_challenge/works). You can also find the masterpost for this year’s challenge [here](https://wordplayfics.tumblr.com/post/185709101043/wordplay-2019-every-week-for-five-weeks-a-prompt).

_Listen to my voice_

_Close your frightened eyes_

_Hide behind my love for you_

_Fear's only a choice_

_One that we all must make someday_

_So know you're not alone in this_

_-_ Rain Clouds by The Arcadian Wild

Harry stood on the water’s edge, the waves gently licking the sand just in front of his toes where they wiggled at the sand. Farther out to sea, he could see a pelican diving down to the water then swooping back into the sky. A pod of whales was breaching just under the horizon, and he could hear kids playing and whooping behind him.

It was a beautiful scene, breathtaking and stunning and gorgeous. But Harry didn’t feel quite like he wanted to appreciate it. Could things still be so beautiful when technically, he didn’t belong to the world anymore?

The sleeves of his black tux were rolled up to his elbows, the pant legs rolled up his calves. He wasn’t sure when his tie had come undone, but he was sure Louis had something to do with it when they’d escaped the weeping eyes at their funeral.

Was it harder to lose someone or harder to leave?

He hadn’t intended to die. Neither had Louis. They had wanted to see the world, not perish on the plane ride out of the country in a freak accident that, from what he and Louis could surmise, no one could explain.

Yet somehow, they remained. At first, Harry thought maybe they were ghosts because the last memory he had was being on the plane as it fell, grasping Louis’s hand like his life depended on it.

Maybe his life _had_ depended on it. When he came to, he and Louis were standing in their flat, hand in hand, exactly as they’d left it the morning they caught their plane. They’d heard Niall and Shawn puttering around the kitchen, singing some sad song together that neither Louis or Harry could place.

They’d walked (floated?) into the kitchen, and confirmed their own suspicion. Niall and Shawn couldn’t see them, despite Louis’s attempts at jumping on Niall’s head. Then Shawn reached out to Niall, pulled him into a hug, and Niall sobbed.

“I can’t believe they’re gone.”

It was all he said, but all Harry and Louis needed to hear to know the truth.

As the days went by, they pieced together the details: their pilot had lost control of the plane, the plane nosedived into the Atlantic, and no one had survived. Harry and Louis didn’t try venturing outside for the first day, instead opting to stay close to Shawn and Niall.

When they’d finally made it outside the flat, the world looked exactly the same. The same bookstore Louis had worked at, the same bakery where Harry worked. The same park they’d taken Shawn’s puppy to, to teach her how to fetch, the same movie theatre Zayn had always dragged them to for indie movies and where they’d met Liam for the first time.

They visited their family, hovering in lives that were going on past them. They’d been floating in the world for a week when Harry and Louis had followed Niall and Shawn to a wake. A wake for Harry and Louis.

That was how Harry had ended up at the beach, his tux in disarray, his tie undone, and breath coming in shallow, even though it did nothing to keep him alive anymore.

He felt Louis’s hand on his shoulder. The one thing he could still feel with certain clarity was Louis. That hadn’t changed, even though everything else had.

“Darling, I think it’s time to go,” Louis said, his voice soft against the crashing of the waves.

Harry knew he was right. They’d felt the tug away from their world multiple times since they’d come to in their flat. But each time, they’d swallowed the feeling, wanting to stay close to their family, their friends. Wanting to say goodbye.

But, as they’d done throughout their entire relationship, Louis was the first to see their next steps. His hand on Harry’s shoulder was the checkpoint. It was time to say goodbye.

Harry sighed, wiping a tear from his eye and turning to face his partner, in life and in death. “I’m afraid, Lou,” he said.

Louis nodded. “Me too.”

Their hands slid together, the call of a seagull overhead as it flew out to sea.

“What do you think is next?” Harry asked.

Louis shrugged. “Does it really matter if we’re together?” His eyes twinkled gently, the same twinkle that had caused Harry to fall in love with Louis in the first place. “It’s just another great adventure, right?”

Harry chuckled, and rolled his eyes. “I can hear you in my head, Lou, telling me the same thing you’ve told me since we met.”

Louis grinned wide. “Fear is a choice, Haz. We get to make that choice.” Harry shook his head fondly, kissed Louis on the temple and sighed.

“That’s why we left home to travel the world together,” Louis continued. “And that just means there’s another adventure after this.”

“We didn’t exactly anticipate this one,” Harry said.  

“No,” Louis said. “But we’re not alone are we?”

Harry shook his head, pulling Louis close. They wrapped their arms around each other, faces nestled in each other’s hair. Harry breathed in Louis’s smell, the same smell he’d known for the best years of his life.

“I’m always here and I’m always your’s Lou,” Harry whispered. He felt the tug in his belly, and this time he didn’t ignore it.

“I’m your’s Haz,” Louis replied and Harry felt something change around them. For the moment though, he ignored it, kept his eyes closed, his face burrowed in Louis’s hair, knowing he wasn’t alone, no matter what came next.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here](https://iamasphodelknox.tumblr.com/) and share the Masterpost for the story if you like it!


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